Historic Homes

While New York City is home to numerous shiny, state-of-the-art buildings, it's also been around quite a long time—the place was settled as New Amsterdam nearly four centuries ago. As such, the five boroughs have scores of historic buildings, 23 of which are preserved by the Historic House Trust of New York City. Among the sites to visit are Alice Austen House Museum on Staten Island, originally built in the 17th century, where visitors can admire Austen's photography and glimpse life from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when she lived in the borough and Historic Richmond Town in the same borough, which recreates colonial life. Also visit the Gracie Mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the official residence of the mayor of New York City and an example of the types of country houses that were once common in the neighbourhood, and a reconstruction of the Old Stone House in Brooklyn, to which American troops fled in the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn and which the baseball club that would later take the name Brooklyn Dodgers once used as a headquarters.